


The Battersea Bridge

by pininglock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, Grief, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 04:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1926984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pininglock/pseuds/pininglock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A life without John Watson isn't a life worth living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Battersea Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Translated into Chinese [here](http://www.movietvslash.com/thread-130515-1-1.html).  
> Translated into German [here](http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/53de168500030dc58a0ebd4/1/The-Battersea-Bridge).
> 
> A huge thank you to Megan/tumblr user bunbatch for editing this story with me and for being a huge support.

Hypothermia is a condition where your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, leading to a low body temperature. It occurs when your body temperature lowers than thirty-five degrees Celsius. It is most often caused by immersion in a cold body of water.

-

There’s a science behind everything.

When the doctors say three months, I understand. It's life expectancy and there is a science behind it. Predictions are based off of how quickly a mind can decompose until the basic bodily functions stop and death entails.

John is silent beside me. He doesn’t move--he hasn’t moved.

The doctors hand me pamphlets and drug prescriptions. They call me, "Mr. Watson." I do not object. Instead, I wonder how they received a medical degree, for there is not a wedding ring on my finger.

They lie and tell me they are sorry. It’s what they’re supposed to say.

John spends a lot of time telling me what I’m supposed to say.

There is a thing about taxis. There is a wall between the driver and you. But in this taxi, in this particular ride, there is a wall between John and me. It is silent.

When we reach that flat, I say, “John,” before he can bury himself in his room.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” is his response.

-

John has always been aspectabund. I can read his emotions like textbook. The endless tapping of his fingers and random tremors of his lips tell me.

He is not ready to die.

Baker St. has always been a home. It is a collection of memories of our time together, from the tea kettle that has been broken on three occasions to the irritating clock on the wall that has been replaced since I threw the skull at it.

I think that John will spend a lot of time here.

-

John spends a lot of time outside the flat. While he is out, I spend my time staring at the door, fingers gripped around my mobile, my coat ready by the door. I listen for the sound of his offbeat footsteps at the door.

One night he calls me, mumbling about the rain and how he has no money for a taxi. I find him sitting, soaking wet, on a bench and under the street light. He does not look at me.

He is silent as I wrap my coat around him. He is silent as the taxi driver threatens to sue him if he ruins the upholstery.

When we reach the flat, he does not look at the taxi man or me as he hands him a fistful of change. He overpays him.

He has forgotten where we live.

-

The average lifespan of a person with Alzheimer’s, from the moment that the signs become noticeable, is eight years. John doesn’t have Alzheimer’s; he has another form of dementia. It progresses quickly, and he becomes moody, withdrawn.

He rarely looks at me in the eye, and he speaks softly. He is quiet on cases, but he continues with the traditional, “brilliant” and “amazing”. But it has shifted. It isn’t the same. I don’t touch him--I don’t tell him, “Everything will be okay,” because then he will be in tears and I will not be able to breathe.

Our conversations are tacenda. They are not words, but deep sighs and fingertip brushes and exchanged glances. The facade of pretending everything was normal grew old. I wondered how long it would last.

And then John, as remarkable as he is, breaks.

The psychosomatic limp returns with the cane. Military dog tags return to the old home around his neck, and I find my breath being taken away whenever I hear them rustle beneath his jumper. Peaceful nights, which were rare anyway, are now disturbed with John’s nightmares and silent fits.

He awakes, one night, to me hovering over him. I expect him to hit me, but instead, a hand flies out and clutches my shirt.

“Promise me, Sherlock. Promise me that you won’t leave me.” His voice is quiet, but the words scream in my head.

I crawl into his bed, crawl underneath the covers with him. He is perfect for me, his body fitting into the curve of my body, his head tucking in below mine. His hand never lets go of my shirt.

“I will never abandon you, John Watson.”

No, John is leaving me.

-

While asleep, otters tend to hold hands to avoid drifting apart. I am with John every night now, holding his hand to avoid drifting apart. I don’t know what he thinks of it. He still has his nightmares, but he tells me that he feels better when I’m there with him. I don’t know what he thinks of it.

I do not sleep. I watch his chest rise and fall. He has such a small number of breaths left. I press my fingertips against his wrist, and he is steady. His heart is steady. He does not act like a dying man, and for that I am grateful.

But the change is obvious.

He takes me out for dinner: Angelo’s, where I was first taken away by the lick of his lips, by the light of the candlelight in his eyes. Where he asked me if I had a girlfriend and I told him it was not really my area.

Where he had told me that it was all fine.

He orders pasta, but he doesn’t eat it. I don’t order anything. Instead I stare at the flickering flame of the candle whose job is to make it “more romantic.” It is so full of life, and yet it’s only chemicals reacting, combusting with the oxygen in the air.

All fires go out.

I try to tell him that I am in love with him but the words die in my throat. It would be so cruel of me. I have led him to believe that my heart had been induratized to the idea of love, and now, he has weeks left.

So it is just silence that fills the air, palling and heavy like the London fog.

When I look up at him, he is staring intently at me. I see my own reflection in his eyes.

He is so close I can feel his breath on my face. “I thought that we would at least have grown old together. Died together. I thought we would have grown old together.”

I feel ustulation, disregarding the repetition. I am burning for John Watson.

“I don’t want to forget you, Sherlock.” His voice breaks at the end, “I don’t want to leave you.”

An incandescent warmth flows through me like molten rock, roiling and consuming. It is unhealthy for my heart to beat this quickly.

As my hands reach to wipe the tears off his face, a whisper flies out of my mouth, “I love you, John Watson.”

In the background, above the mindless chatter of the other diners, I hear Angelo chuckling.

-

How quickly time passes when you are in love.

-

When an animal is in a lot of pain, it stops eating. Why it does so, because it’s either in too much pain it refuses to move or it wants the pain to end, is unknown.

I force feed him. I must force him to do everything. He has become lethargic as the weeks turn into days.

Cases are a rare occasion, but they are not enjoyable, save the moments I whisper deductions in his ear and he rewards me with soft kisses, but he grows tired easily from the lack of food. He falls asleep on stakeouts.

They whisper about us, but that is because they do not understand. They do not understand what it’s like to be loved by John Watson. I feel sorry for them.

I take good care of John. I am attentive to his needs.

But he is a fraying knot, held together with very few threads.

 

-

I find myself imagining that they have found a cure. I imagine John coming home and telling me that he’s going to be okay. I imagine a wedding in a yellow room. I imagine we dance together to a waltz, the embodiment of my love for him.

I know that I hope for the impossible.

-

It is a few weeks later when I am awoken by a hand wrapped around my throat.

"Who are you?" I felt John’s fingers push down harder on my throat. "Why are you here?"

He is straddling me, pinning me down. I can't breathe.

"It's me," I gasp. "Sherlock Holmes."

His grip tightens and then relaxes.

"Oh my god," he whispers.

-

It is cold and lonely in my bed.

-

I hear a crash from the living room. I run to John. His chair is overturned, the lamp knocked over, papers everywhere.

He’s pressing against the wall. Shaking. “I don’t know who I am. Dear God, please, tell me who I am.” He breathes quickly, heavily: he is panicking. His eyes dart everywhere like a trapped animal.

I step toward him slowly, remembering how to speak like the pamphlets told me to.

“You are John Hamish Watson. You were a soldier, and you are a doctor.” And you are everything to me.

“Am I?” He’s still breathing heavily, and he clutches onto the desk. “Am I really?”

I keep stepping toward him, until I can put both my hands on his face, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “Yes. You are Dr. John Hamish Watson.” You are the love of my life.

He doesn’t hear the sound of me breaking.

-

I cannot sleep at all. I sit at the foot of his bed because I am so afraid each night might be last. When he cannot fall asleep, we have quiet conversations. We avoid talking about how near it is.

One night, he whispers, “Sherlock, turn on the light.”

I do as he asks and he motions me to climb into bed with him. I haven’t been this close to him for days.

“I want you to be the last thing I remember,” he whispers. His hand rests against my cheek. “I don’t ever want to forget you.”

He has forgotten, already. I can count the numerous occasions that he could not remember my name. I press my lips onto his forehead.

“Sherlock…” he murmurs, leaning back to get a better look at me, “I need to memorize you.”

His fingers trace the bridge of my nose, the curve of cheekbone.

He falls asleep with his face still turned towards me.

-

“Why me,” he asked today. “Why, out of all the people, was I chosen to die?”

He expects me to have the answer. I cannot tell him anything comforting.

The average house fly lives for fourteen days.

That is longer than the time John Watson has left.

-

I read to him. Books about pirates and the solar system. I play the violin for him. He enjoys Tchaikovsky.

Sometimes he remembers me. Sometimes he doesn’t remember his own name.

Sometimes he kisses me. Sometimes he screams at me to leave him alone.

I take him on rides around London. He just stares out the window. I don’t know if he actually sees anything.

We walk to Angelo’s. Neither of us orders anything. Angelo puts out a candle, but it sputters, dying out seconds later.

Sometimes he unconsciously holds my hand. I pretend that this is a part of him still holding onto me. This is a part that still remembers.

I ask him once, childishly, if he still loves me.

He replies, “I’m sorry, but who are you again?”

-

 

Tsunamis are massive waves caused by earthquakes or volcanic eruptions under the sea. John Watson’s entrance into my life was a pulchritudinous volcanic eruption. It created a tsunami wave so large that I was drowning, but I wanted to drown--I want to drown.

John Watson’s departure from my life is the wave’s retreat from the land, heading back to the sea. How slowly it goes, but then it’s gone. All you’re left with is the detritus, the destruction in its wake.

I still take cases. I can no longer murmur deductions in John’s ear. I am no longer kissed in reward. Instead I’m forced to endure their whispers as I move around the crime scene.

I come to realize that I should not have felt sorry for them, when it is they who feel sorry for me.

221B Baker St. is no longer a home. It is filled with memories of the time I had shared with John Watson. It is a memorial and I cannot bear to live there anymore.

The day John Watson dies is the day I stop drowning.

And sink.

-

There are different types of dying.

There is the scientific dying, the one where your heart stops beating and the blood stops flowing. The dying where your body decomposes. And within that, there are more ways to die: when your body is hit by such a force and it is just a burst of pain and it is over, or when the pain is drawn out and you can feel it coming.

John had felt it coming.

There are pros and cons to each type of death. In the first death, there is hardly any pain, or the pain is very brief. And in the second death, you can say goodbye.

The con for both is you’re dying.

The second, the last type of death, is indescribable. It is when your body still moves and you still breathe, but it is so cold. You forget how to laugh. You forget what warmth is.

All you can feel is the needle pushing into your veins, the rush of blood that drags you further away from the shore.

It is when time blurs together and it is no longer important if you are eating or sleeping enough because everything reminds you of him.

-

There is a French phrase: l’appel du vide. It translates, literally, to “the call of the void.” It is the desire that someone feels when they stand on the edge of a high place to jump. To see what happens.

I stand there at the bridge.

It is cold.

I hear my mobile ring, and I think that it is John. I think that it is John telling me he is okay and he is at home with takeout and that he is been wondering where I’ve been.

It is Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade.

“Hello.”

“Sherlock! I haven’t heard from you in ages. How have you been?”

He sounds too happy. There is a pause.

He clears his throat and says, “Well, anyway, I’m calling because there’s been a case--”

“I don’t care.”

Another pause, and he sighs and says, “Look, Sherlock, I know that it’s been a hard time but you know, mate, it’s time to move on.”

“Move on? Move on to what.”

“With--with life you know? Get on with your life. You’re the Sherlock Holmes.” He tries to make it a joke. He fails miserably.

I hang up on him. “John Watson was my life,” I mutter to the closed phone.

I turn and face the water, stones heavy within my pockets.

It is November. The water should have been cold.

John Hamish Watson killed me.

-

A little boy plays by the river side when he notices a shape in the water. It wears a beautiful dark coat with buttons.

-


End file.
